(IsraelNN.com) Apple farmers in the Golan Heights are planning to uproot thousands of fruit trees due to the severe shortage of water.

Israel's apple orchards, which for years have been the pride of the Golan Heights, cover approximately 10,500 acres and produce 16-20 tons of fruit per acre.

However, growing apples requires a lot of water – something that was in scarce supply for the past few years, and was downright unavailable this past summer. As a result, many farmers are being forced to switch to less thirsty crops.

That doesn't make it any easier to watch, as Kibbutz Merom Golan farmer Gabi Kuniel told the Globes business news service. "As a farmer, I can't stand in the field and watch the sad sight of uprooting. There is nothing more painful," he said.

One crop that farmers have begun to turn to instead is the ancient red pomegranate, with its juicy, ruby-colored flesh surrounding the hundreds of small white seeds that grow within each fruit.

Several organic pomegranate orchards were planted two years ago, before the Shemitta (Sabbatical) year, during which planting is forbidden by Jewish law. The Shemitta year ended as the New Year was ushered in this past Monday night.

Israel has approximately 1,375 acres of pomegranate orchards, producing 18,000 tons of fruit this year.  

Pomegranates are known for their many and varied health and beauty benefits, and since 2003 at least one strain is also considered a good candidate for production of alcoholic beverages. A farming family of founding members of Moshav Kerem Ben Zimra, in the Upper Galilee, had begun to experiment in the late 1990's with the fruit to try and develop a new strain of pomegranate that would be sweeter and deeper in color. Ultimately Gaby and Avi Nachmias succeeded in their effort to engineer their "super fruit" and today the owners of the Rimon Winery produce a number of fine – and expensive -- varietal pomegranate wines.